I come from a typical working class immigrant family. My parents were first generation Jamaicans who came to the UK in the 1960s and worked very hard at building their businesses. Although they wanted me to do well, and I spent loads of time reading in the local library because I loved learning, university wasn't on their radar. Nobody in my circle of friends or relatives had a degree or aspired to one.

My brother was seven years younger than me, and I taught him how to read and do his arithmetic. I remember feeling such a sense of pride in seeing him come on. But I left school with five O-levels and then went into a civil service admin job at 17 which I was bored by and just terrible at. Over the years, it chipped away at my self-esteem. Although I was quite bright I didn't progress as I would have liked to. It was a painful experience, looking back.

I had my children aged 23 and 30, and it was through helping them with their schooling that I re-entered, very tentatively, the world of education. I really enjoyed that contact with their teachers, and though I don't think I was consciously aware, maybe it gave me a glimpse of a kind of working environment I might flourish in. Then, when I was 33, my husband died. With two young children to bring up on my own and absolutely no financial security, I thought, 'how am I going to change this?' Enrolling on an Access to Teaching course was my turning point, although I had no practical help and no money apart from income support. It was punishingly hard work to get me and the kids through the week fed and in clean clothes and with their – and my – homework done.

That Access to Teaching course really changed me. It reminded me that I loved to learn and loved to help others to learn. And the tutors at the college took an interest in all of us students as individuals and supported me more than I can say when I applied to go to university.

I struggled horribly in my first two years doing a degree in ICT. I was 35 and although I'd loved computing in school, I hadn't done any since then. I had to work three times as hard as the others, so I would read and read and make dinner for my kids and read another page and clean up the mess and then read some more.

There was something quite enjoyable about being out of my depth at uni – in a funny way I knew it meant I was moving in the right direction. But logistically it was very tough to be a single mother and do a degree full-time.

Getting a first-class degree and then being accepted at the Institute of Education for my PGCE was such a brilliant feeling. It was also the first time I'd met other people going into the teaching profession and I realised that my background was quite unusual. I was 40 by the time I did my NQT year, and I've stayed at Forest Gate school ever since, going from head of ICT in my second year teaching to assistant head in eight years. I love teaching, and though I'm on the Future Leaders programme, where the pathway is to headship in five years, I think I'd only ever want to be the kind of head who still does classroom teaching. It's unusual, but I've seen it work – the head here does it.

The school has changed a lot in the last five or six years. At one point we were dealing with drug dealers at the gate, and many of our male pupils aspired to be in gangs. You need really strong behaviour policies in that situation, and we've got a lot better at that.

I've always believed in social, moral, spiritual and cultural education – one of my areas of responsibility now. But I've had time to really think about it in this role, and truly believe it's essential to nurture the whole child, and those aspects that make them a good human being.

My personal challenge is to believe in myself. I still wrestle with that. It's the fallout from my schooldays and that awful, dispiriting job in my 20s. I push through and mostly I ignore it, but every now and again just think: "This journey I'm on, where am I going to end up and am I going to be effective when I get there?"

The pupils here know a bit about my background. This is the first year I've specifically set out to tell them in an assembly about the journey I went on to be a teacher. I've noticed that they've responded to me a bit differently since. You see this little light in their eyes and it's "Oh, so Miss didn't arrive from Mars, she's had to really struggle to get where she is."

Seeing how I've had to strive to build my career from nothing has been a big influence on my children. They're both extremely purposeful individuals with high aspirations. I persuaded my little brother to go to university at the same time as me, so he's a graduate now, and my sister is currently in her second year of doing a degree. Education has completely transformed my family's life chances. That's what I want to show pupils at my school – I want to inspire them and convince them that it can be done.